From 7 Years to 12 Weeks: How One Father's Fight Against Rare Disease Built an AI-Powered Healthcare Company with Joshua Resnikoff

0:01John Lee Dumas:Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down going from seven years to 12 weeks, how one father's fight against rare disease built an AI powered healthcare company. And to drop these value bombs, I brought Joshua Resnikoff and the EO Fire Studios. Joshua is the CEO and co-founder of Sunstone Health, a company using AI to help families of children with developmental delays like autism and epilepsy get answers faster, turning years of waiting into weeks. So today we talk about the personal story, the diagnostic odyssey, how Sunstone changes the game, and oh, so much more.

0:43John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Joshua and our sponsors. Fire Nation, is your business stuck? Join Eric Trump and Clay Clark's life-changing business conference, November 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Learn the specific proven systems Clay Clark has used to create thousands of success stories today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire. Again, request tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

1:21John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at HighLevelFire.com. HighLevelFire.com. Joshua, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Great to be here, John. What's up, Fire Nation? I have thought about this a lot. And I actually think that most people think that success ends up being somewhat of a lottery ticket. I think that's kind of backwards. I think that success is a system. It's something that happens to you. It's manufactured through really relentless hard work and a repeatable method.

2:05And I know that because I've done successful things more than once, right? And so everything from building a really successful consumer products company to building a really successful patent basis that spun out to become biotechs to the work that I do now at Sunstone Health. It is a system. It is a grind. It is really that 99 % perspiration. But it is a process that you have to commit yourself to to be successful. You manufacture success. You do not become successful by chance.

2:38John Lee Dumas:Bam. I mean, Firing Nation, that's how we start. And you better just hang on to these rollercoaster seats because we are in for quite some ride today. And I gotta be honest, being a father of a two and a half year old son, Beau, I really am looking forward to seeing how this conversation unfolds because we're talking about one father's fight against rare disease and how that built an AI powered healthcare company. I mean, what more motivation can exist in this world than wanting to create something to help your child. I don't know if that exists. Any parents out there could probably agree, but I want to talk about your personal story to start, Josh.

3:14John Lee Dumas:I want to talk about how this started with your son, Silo, facing months of unexplained fevers and literally no answers. Can you take us into that experience and then how it led you to build Sunstone? Shai is my second son. I have three boys now. I also have a two and a half year old now. Oh, lovely age. yeah let's it's great man he's super fun he's a rascal but um lots and lots and lots of fun shy is 10 now um when he was born he was super easy you know there was nothing about his birth that triggered any concerns right and there was nothing really about the pregnancy i mean he came he had to come a little early because his mom had some preclampsia but that's pretty normal You know, it's nothing, nothing that wasn't, isn't very, very common for any healthcare institution, any provider to tackle either as a run up or, or during the actual pregnancy.

4:13So, you know, second pregnancy popped right out. I think, I think she labored for like 45 minutes, came out, he was a healthy eater, you know, growing, hitting all his milestones. there was really no thing that prepared us for that first fever. And so, you know, as, as a dad, like you understand that, that, that first fever, you know, he was on the couch. I think I went into the kitchen to like get him a glass of milk. I don't, I remember I left for like two minutes, like, like minutes and came back and he was just melting. and so you know you take his temp he was at 105 um and for any kid who's over 103 like that's a that's a er level event right so we ended up um at the doctor's office trying to figure out what's going on and ultimately they didn't know kids get sick for all kinds of reasons um it's it's one of the sort of more challenging things about kids is that there's not a lot of uh evidence or basis to like say oh well it could be this thing could be this thing you know kids are kids are little they're new so they get sick you don't know what's going on what happened with him is we went through about four days of trying to manage this fever got through it no major side effects no seizures nothing like that and we all kind of breathe a deep sigh of relief kids are weird kids get sick kids will scare the crap out of you over and over and over again so we're fine we thought we got out of it.

5:49And then it happened again a month later. And then it happened again the month after that. And then it happened again the month after that. And after a little while, it's like, hey, something is really not right. You know, when there's, when we know every single month, there's going to be a week where we're trying to manage this kid's temperature just to get them below 103. So So people aren't, you know, like they're not having critical fear about this child. That's not great. Right. The terrible joke I tell is like, hey, if you're in a first name basis with your ER triage nurse, it's not good as a parent.

6:28And so, look, at the time I was a I was a scientist at the Vese Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard Med. I was well inside the Harvard MIT community. I lived, you know, a couple miles from some of the best pediatric clinical research institutions, I would argue, in the world. and it still took me years of bouncing into the ER and in and out of pediatrician's office, in and out of new pediatrician's office, because I was so mad about the lack of care that we were getting. And so we finally met somebody who kind of had this aha moment of like, hey, I think I read about one of these types of periodic fevers in a page of my textbook, you know, years and years and years ago.

7:13And so we were able to arrive at this kind of functional diagnosis for him. And I honestly thought that it was going to be, you know, the moment, like our breakthrough moment, right? Like, Hey, okay, we figured it out. You know, like, what do we do next? And this woman looks at me and she's like, Oh, there's nothing you can do. There's absolutely nothing you could do. Maybe 500 kids in the States have this thing. There's not really any body of research around it. we don't really know. And she looks me down in the eyes and she goes, it's not terminal. So don't worry about it.

7:45John Lee Dumas:I swear to God, sometimes the things that come out of doctor's mouth, I'm just like, like, are you listening to yourself right now? I mean, you are absolutely spewing garbage from a dumpster fire. Oh my God, man. The same lady, the same lady at one point in one of our many, many doctor's visits had worried out loud about how it was going to impact her efficacy score as a provider, not about like, is my kid a mess on the table? But she's like, oh, I really need to solve this, you know, because it's going to negatively affect my bonus at the end of the year. Go to hell. Seriously. So that was really my crucible moment, right?

8:22That's the thing that for this enterprise, I was like, holy shit, this is bad. It still took me years to kind of dig out of that hole because there's a lot that comes along with becoming a rare disease parent. You know, you feel so isolated. You feel so lonely. This has only happened to me. There's a lot of guilt that gets involved with like, what have I done to my kid? Like there's, there's all of the parts of being a parent just get magnified to, to an amazing degree.

8:47John Lee Dumas:And this really is a parent's worst nightmare. That's why I want to keep moving along because we have so much to talk about, you know, specifically how Sunstone is changing the game now because you're using AI, you're using health data to do what? To identify undiagnosed conditions and get families answers in weeks instead of years. How is this possible? The short answer is the frustration that we had, right? On average, the family in America, who's got challenge, right? That could be an adult or a child. The average time from first sort of odd symptom to a diagnosis and care path that works for you is seven years.

9:21And mostly because you get ignored, you get gaslit by your provider, you get bounced around from specialist a specialist. You know, how many times has anyone in your community listening, hey, you need to go see a specialist. Could be a dermatologist, could be genetics, doesn't really matter. Hey, first appointment we have is nine months from now. And you're like, well, that sucks because my problem is today, right? I'm having a challenge today. I don't feel good right now. And so with Sunstone, what we did is we built tech to go look at medical insurance the same way that a doctor will look at a clinical chart to flag patterns of expression, patterns of patient behavior that look suspicious.

10:02And once we have that suspicion, we can elevate them to get that second or third look as fast as possible. And truly the big unlock for us is we don't do new science, John. The whole point of our system is that we just push you through all of the things that you would have gotten through in seven years as fast as humanly possible. We drag the very last thing that insurance is going to pay for, the very last thing you're going to bump into as an escalation. We pull it all the way forward so we can just answer those questions fast. So you're going to see all the same specialists. You're going to see all the same testing that you would normally do.

10:38We just do in a way that can get you those answers in 12 weeks.

10:41John Lee Dumas:So Josh, we're going to dive even deeper into this process. We're going to talk about building with a purpose when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, is your business stuck? Join Eric Trump and Clay Clark's life-changing business conference, November 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Learn the specific proven systems Clay Clark has used to create thousands of millionaire success stories. See thousands of success stories and testimonials from real people just like you, who Clay Clark has mentored and coached into prosperity at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFire. Clay's proven business coaching program is month-to-month, and it costs less money than hiring a minimum wage employee.

11:15John Lee Dumas:Yes, it's month-to-month and costs less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. schedule your free personal 13 point assessment with clay clark himself today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire because clay only takes on 160 clients it only allows 300 attendees to each business conference you will interact with clay directly see thousands of real success stories and learn about attending the thrive time show today in-person workshops featuring football star and entrepreneur tim tebow and president trump's son eric trump today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Become the next success story.

11:47John Lee Dumas:Schedule a free consultation and request tickets to join football star and entrepreneur Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump, at Clay Clark's next business conference today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed, all under one roof.

12:19John Lee Dumas:No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business, and their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 days to something execution roadmap, and more. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. All right, Josh, we're back. And as I said before the break, I mean, you were able to figure out how to create a smarter business model.

12:59John Lee Dumas:I mean, you have literally built Sunstone with a simple results-based model. I mean, go figure, that makes sense, but you know, whatever. Why does that approach make so much sense? And it's so frustrating that other people aren't figuring this out, but please, why? Why does this make so much sense? Intuitively, everybody pays on results, right? Like if that's, if that's, you go to the store and buy a gallon of milk, you pay for the gallon of milk. You don't pay for the opportunity to go to the store and buy a gallon of milk, right? If, if you're a employer and that could be whether you're like a paper mill or a tech company, it, whether you're buying lumber or you're buying tokens, you pay for the things that you use.

13:38What most people don't understand in the healthcare world is that most of these employer plans, even the carriers for that matter, but most of these employer plans for any kind of solution that gets brought in, whether it's wellness or whether it's something that, that might look like mine, behavioral health, et cetera, they're charged on what's called this PM PM, this per member per month basis, right? Which is like the biggest. Okay. So when, when we all unbundled from cable 10, 15 years ago, whenever Netflix first popped up, maybe it's even longer than I'm dating myself now, but it was like, Oh sweet.

14:10I don't have have to pay pick your cable provider 150 bucks a month anymore i can just pay netflix 799 and that was awesome when it first started right we're all like oh what a deal what's happened now to you as a father to me as a father of three kids right like now i pay out the notes for every streaming service because everybody just wants 799 a month and then it's 11.99 a month and then it's 19.99 a month the same thing has happened on the health care level where all of these things got broken out. And then all of them now run this crazy subscription model, even though at a utilization level, that means like how many members are actually engaging with them.

14:46You have a very, very low percentage. Like if you can hit 5 % of members are actually engaging with your product, you are, you're a billion dollar company. You're, you're crushing it. Right. So when we looked at this as like, Hey, we're not going to sell to families because they're already bothered. We're not going to sell the doctors because healthcare systems aren't really known for their profit margins, let's be honest. We're going to go talk to the people who actually have the financial risk on these patients because they're the easiest one to make a value prop to, not a health value prop, but a financial value proposition to.

15:16Those are the self-funded employers. So we built an employee benefit to sell to them. But just like you said at the top, right? Like when I go in, I say, Hey, I'll do everything on my side at risk because I know we're so good at it. And when I'm successful, that's when I expect to get paid. Hey, turns And plans love that. Employers love that. Because now we're just like that lumber vendor. Now we're just like their token vendor.

15:38John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about building with a purpose. Because to me, that's really an amazing part of this story. I mean, obviously, we shared a little bit about what happens with your son, Shiloh. So you went from bootstrapping to crowdfunding to building a remote team. Share with Fire Nation, like, what have you learned about scaling a mission-driven company? Having a mission for this kind of thing is important because it's hard. And so personally, it's really important because I believe at this at a very obviously fundamental level, like at like at my core, this is what I want to be doing. I know that we're making an impact and that means that all of those times and like maybe that bootstrapping was going to run out or those you know those low moments and you're going to have low moments as an entrepreneur let no one there is no Instagram version of this thing that is the part that makes you get up in the morning and do it again you got to get back on the horse 10 ,000 times like I don't know how else to say it but you gotta you have to train yourself to do that because it is the only way that you're going to get through the actual grind of building any successful company.

16:49Now, the other side of that is when you have a mission, other people will share that mission with you, right? And look, there are plenty of people out there. Their mission might be to go make a whole lot of money. That's good. There are people who are co-operated. That's fantastic. When my mission is to help families, there are so many people who have been touched by a bad healthcare system because they have something that's bothering them that healthcare can't address, they're motivated to help me make a better world for everybody else. And honestly, that has been the best recruiting tool I've ever had in my pocket to bring on the best possible talent from all over the globe.

17:27John Lee Dumas:I wanna talk about what's next, because listen, as you look ahead, how are you expanding the partnerships that are working? How are you moving closer to a future where every family can access answers through their benefits. Like what is your vision for, you know, the over the horizon, the upcoming one, three, five years? Today, when we go off and we help employers save a lot of money by doing the right things for their families that are, that need the help, that want to opt into the process, we really focus on autism spectrum disorder as our initial entry point. but like look the the world of autism spectrum is disorder is one in 31 kids in america one out of six kids actually suffers developmental delay right but then as you start to look at the the world of genetic disease patients globally but here in the states it's about one in ten people and that's really the expansion path that we aim that we plan on taking over the next two to three years is expanding out.

18:28Like the tech we've built, the system we've built is actually fantastic at finding any population that has a likely genetic basis for disease. We pointed at these kids because they're so underserved right now. And it's such a pain point for employers. It's a really easy place for us to go start a conversation. But the expansion potential for us in the back end is massive because all of these patients, right, you're talking about literally 30, 35 million Americans are not served well by their existing healthcare provider. And so we, we are, we're in conversation right now with partners on the cell and gene therapy delivery side with pharma, with specialty medicine, right?

19:08To make sure that we can actually create these dedicated paths inside an employer who can take care of any kind of these patients that we can go find early before they have to get to a diagnosis, because by the time you've gotten to a diagnosis, it's too late. So we want to be a proactive benefit that comes in and helps those individuals achieve optimized health, you know, live their best life for as long as possible. And in doing so, save that employer a whole bunch of money to boot.

19:34John Lee Dumas:Josh, take a step back here. You know, we talked about your personal story a little bit with Shiloh and how you kind of were able to turn that into what you now have with Sunstone. We talked about, you know, how Sunstone is changing the game, a smarter business model, building with a purpose. What's next for families out there? who are still searching for answers, what is the one message that you want them to hear today? You're not alone. You're not alone. It will feel like you are alone. It will. Whether that is a fairly routine diagnosis like autism spectrum disorder, or if it is some horrible N of one mutation that you have to have some really hard conversations with your partner about.

20:15It is a failing of the system that my company has to exist. But because we do exist, you do not have to have that fight by yourself. If you come to me, we will fight for you to make sure that you get the best possible outcomes that science, that research can provide.

20:30John Lee Dumas:Josh, if Fire Nation wants to learn more about your story, about Sunstone in general, if they want to connect with you, what is your call to action for our listeners today? Go to sunstonehealth.com. Anybody can sign up for the app. We have an entire physician network that is ready to help. Again, we focus on autism and developmental delay, but we will be expanding. If you want to follow me or just hear more about what we do, I'm on LinkedIn. You can go to Sunstone Health on YouTube or across all the socials. But we want to build that army, John, of people who demand better health for them and their families.

21:06So come join us. We'd love to have you as part of our team.

21:10John Lee Dumas:That is a worthy fight, my friends and Fire Nation. You're the average. of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with JR and JLD today, so keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Joshua in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Josh, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute your brother and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks for the opportunity. It's great to connect with your community. I love what you guys do. Thank you.

21:40John Lee Dumas:Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Joshua for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire. So to learn more about becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest. And I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Fire Nation, is your business stuck? Join Eric Trump and Clay Clark's life-changing business conference, November 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Learn the specific proven systems Clay Clark has used to create thousands of success stories today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFire.

22:15John Lee Dumas:Again, request tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFire. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. highlevelfire.com.